[johnny]

Yeah, poetry is never the first step for writers to get published.

The best bet to get published is to write a one-off novel, or a novel that can be a one-off. Publishing houses don't like dealing with series, short stories, or poetry collections.

Unless you've got a really, really good agent and a really, really good series to sell to the publishing house, they would rather buy something that they can sell and make money from and then later ask you to do a follow-up, or sell and lose money from and try and forget it. Most writers probably have series in mind when they write - trilogies, quartets, indefinite series - but they're usually careful not to mention their story might be part of a series until negotiations are underway and the publisher has pretty much already bought the book. The fact that JK Rowling got away with Harry Potter is actually rather miraculous, considering how wary publishers are of new authors and untested series.

And short story and poetry collections are right out. There's the tiniest chance they'll be published, and an even tinier sliver of that tiny chance that they'll make you any money.